This invention relates to an improvement in a correction and control system which is made use of in a function-equipped timepiece.
In digital electronic timepieces which make use of a quartz oscillator and comprise C-MOS circuitry and an electro-optical display device, the function circuits can be easily constructed by employing the C-MOS technology, and the display device, since it can be put to use to display functions as well as time, is capable of being utilized in a so-called multi-function timepiece. Many proposals have been made in this area, and the production of such timepieces has gone forward.
However, in multi-function timepieces where a number of supplementary functions have been added to the principle time and calendar functions, numerous control operations were required for changing over among displays, selecting functions, correcting and setting data, controlling functions, and the like. Moreover, as all of these operations has to be performed by means of 3 or 4 control buttons, inevitably a number of control functions were accomplished through the use of a single control button. As a result, contradictions in use often arose between respective control button operations, and a user, owing to the complicated control system, did not know how to correctly operate the available functions and was likely to disrupt, by means of an erroneous operation, the time-keeping information which constitutes the main function of a timepiece. For example, in the case of functions such as alarm or timer functions which accompany the setting of numerical values related to time or a time-interval, setting the numerical values and correcting the time-keeping data of the time-keeping function are performed by the same operation; hence, although it is preferable that the same control button be employed for both operations, contradictions in use arise when controlling the above-mentioned two functions. In other words, setting the time in the alarm function is performed several times daily and so it follows that this particular operation should be made as easy to accomplish as possible. On the other hand, a time correction of the time-keeping function had to be made somewhat more difficult in order to prevent accidental operation. Accordingly, this could not be accomplished by a single button in the prior art regardless of the identical nature of the above-mentioned operations. As a consequence, individual control buttons were installed and the control buttons for time corrections were recessed into the watch case in order to prevent accidental operation.
In multi-function timepieces where a number of supplementary functions have been added to the principle time and calendar functions, problems have arisen related to a system of control members for controlling the functions and with regard to the display system for each of the functions. In particular, in order for a user to make the best use of each of the available functions, he must clearly be able to recognize the relationships among such displayed functions as a selected function display at a time when respective functions are in a mode where they can be controlled, or an operating function display for displaying supplementary functions which are in an operating state at the same time that the display device is in the main function display state.